Juneteenth honours the end of slavery, and celebrated each year on June 19th, which is the day in 1865 that the slaves of Texas became free when Union soldiers occupied Galveston.

The legacy of slavery in the United States continues to cut deep even in this “post-racial” (heh) age, and I hope you all take a moment today to reflect on it. It’s sad that this holiday is not observed more widely than it is today.

Below is a recording of the great Bessie Brown singing Song from a Cotton Field.

5 Responses to “It’s Juneteenth.”

I’m not on board with using this as an excuse to bash Texas. Galveston’s just the last place the Union Army reached, it’s not like it was demonstrably worse than other places in the Confederacy (and in fact there was very little slavery in most of Texas, it was really only prevalent in East Texas). And at least Texas celebrated the end of slavery with Juneteenth, which was a legitimate state holiday dating back to 1866 that has only recently been coopted / expanded to near-national recognition. It’s not like the other 49 states were having parades on the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

And let us not forget there were states not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation, and even states that did not end slavery until December 1865, when the 13th Amendment was ratified. Ending slavery in the US was a much longer, locality-by-locality process than most people realize.

My apologies! I was once a Texan myself. I realize it has very little to do with Texan politics of the post civil war era, which then bore scant resemblance to Texan politics of today, and neither of which are as conservative as many people think. I was just making a (dumb) joke. But I suppose I should have known the emancipation proclamation is probably not the laughingest matter.